At wolfSSL we try to be progressive with our support of new cryptography technology. We were the first TLS implementation to support DTLS v1.2 and we were the first embedded TLS implementation to support TLS v1.3.
There has been a lot of buzz in the media recently about “post-quantum” cryptography. This is mostly about which public key algorithms we will use in the near future. Soon, a large enough quantum computer will be built that can run Shor’s algorithm. It will almost instantaneously find factors for really large numbers, like RSA keys or points on elliptic curves. This is a serious problem for network security that is a matter of when it will happen, not if. We will need new algorithms that don’t depend on multiplying large numbers.
One contender for the future of public key cryptography immune to Shor’s algorithm and quantum computers is in the field of lattice mathematics. There exists a set of algorithms based on the work done by Security Innovation and their algorithm NTRU. You can configure wolfSSL to take advantage of Security Innovation’s NTRU library.
To take advantage of NTRU and other quantum safe public key operations in TLS, some extensions have been proposed for inclusion with TLS v1.3 and TLS v1.2 for Quantum Safe Hybrid, or QSH. These allow one to use one-time quantum-safe key pairs in addition to existing certificates.
The future on the cryptography landscape is scary and exciting. We at wolfSSL Inc want to help you navigate these dangers with cutting edge technologies like NTRU and other quantum computing safe algorithms.
If you have any questions or run into any issues, contact us at facts@wolfssl.com, or call us at +1 425 245 8247.